Reducing echo in kitchen-diner

pinkteapot

Our new(build) house has a kitchen diner. Rough floor plan: 

Flooring is wood-effect vinyl (like Karndean). Dining table and chairs are solid oak. Kitchen has gloss cupboards and smooth worktops. So, all hard surfaces!

The echo is really noticeable, so sitting and chatting at the dining table isn't as pleasant as it should be. We've just put curtains up at the bifold doors and a blind in the front window. When the curtains are closed it's a lot better (but not perfect), but we play a lot of board-games at the table during the day so need to reduce the echo when the curtains are open, too. 

Yesterday we put our table protector on the table - one of those felt/foam things. That made a marginal improvement.

The next two things we can think of to try are expensive, and we don't want to do them if they'll make no difference, but how can we tell? 

Firstly, where the red line is we have a large framed picture on the wall. It's a framed print with glass, so another glass surface. I've found a company that do acoustic panels (sound-absorbing) which can be printed with a picture of our choice. They look really good, but a large one to fill that space will be best part of £300. Anyone tried one of these? It's a lot of money if it makes no difference!

Second option is a rug under the dining table and chairs, but as it'd be under the table I don't know if it would help? We're not keen to put a rug in the open kitchen area at the other end, being a kitchen! But that end is no doubt contributing as there's nothing there to soften things.

Any other ideas? Before this we rented a house for a year with a kitchen diner with vinyl flooring and it didn't echo - it's the first time I've known a room be this bad. 

Doozergirl

All of that will help.  Basically anything that will absorb sound. 

I will be going for a rug under the dining table and changing our dining chairs to upholstered ones when we move.  

We've put acoustic panels into a club room before and it does make a difference but in a home I'd be looking for solutions that are more interior design led.  

pinkteapot

Doozergirl said:

All of that will help.  Basically anything that will absorb sound. 

I will be going for a rug under the dining table and changing our dining chairs to upholstered ones when we move.  

We've put acoustic panels into a club room before and it does make a difference but in a home I'd be looking for solutions that are more interior design led.  

Thanks, doozer. I don't usually like acoustic panels because they look like they should be in an office/cinema/recording studio, but I'm looking at having one of these made with a photo of one of our favourite places: 
http://gikacoustics.co.uk/product-category/acoustic-art-panels/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAm4TyBRDgARIsAOU75sokl8-lHrZBSOKfhXHUa0N0ssbWibszfTn6nDUfGWeLComxWeEKhlUaAumnEALw_wcB

I did think about replacing the dining chairs with upholstered ones, but again, it's not a cheap solution. 

Mostly I'm worried that the kitchen end will still all be hard surfaces and corners so we could spend a lot of money and not improve things. 

markin

Take the glass off the framed print and put foam or rubber on the back, The acoustic-art-panels look a bit expensive for what they are. You could make some white ones for the ceiling.

missprice

Do you have plastered walls,  no wallpaper? 
I had to wallpaper a hallway years ago, same problem with sound bouncing around.  Even if you just did lining paper and painted it that would be cheap and work.

pinkteapot

Thanks both. 

There's no wallpaper. I'm not really keen to put paper up, even if it's just lining paper, as it's a brand new house so the walls are in good condition and freshly painted. If all else fails I'd consider it though!

Owain_Moneysaver

You could just get a photo canvas or vinyl banner printed with the image, frame it on battens and put some wadding behind it. Fairly cheap from vistaprint with a voucher code, or others. 
Even a slatted wood screen in front of the double doors may help a bit.
You can also get hanging rails which hook over kitchen cabinet doors - a few nice tea-towels would also make a small difference.